This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah Triesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.

This month we're going to hear Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates, which was published in the New Yorker in October of 1994.

A true zombie would be mine forever.

He would obey me saying,

Yes, Master and no Master. He would kneel before me saying,

I love you, Master. There is no one but you, Master.

The story was chosen by Achilles Charma, who's the author of the novel's Family Life and an obedient father,

which will be reissued in a revised version this month.

Hi, Achilles.

Hey, Deborah.

Welcome.

This is your third time on the podcast.

And the last two times you discussed stories by Tobias Wolfe and Jeffrey Jennings,

what may you choose Joyce Carol Oates this year?

I mean, I have an odd relationship to this.

A story, Joyce Carol Oates was my teacher.

One of the characters is named Achilles.

Achilles is an unusual name, and I remember reading it,

wondering if she used my name deliberately,

and hoping that the character got murdered or something amazing happened,

...